Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate

Win, for a Trojan head to wear the prize,

Usurp thy crown, enjoy thy victories?

The bride and scepter which thy blood has bought,

The king transfers; and foreign heirs are sought.

Go now, deluded man, and seek again

New toils, new dangers, on the dusty plain.

Repel the Tuscan foes; their city seize;

Protect the Latians in luxurious ease.

This dream all-pow'rful Juno sends; I bear

Her mighty mandates, and her words you hear.

Haste; arm your Ardeans; issue to the plain;

With fate to friend, assault the Trojan train:

Their thoughtless chiefs, their painted ships, that lie

In Tiber's mouth, with fire and sword destroy.

The Latian king, unless he shall submit,

Own his old promise, and his new forget-

Let him, in arms, the pow'r of Turnus prove,

And learn to fear whom he disdains to love.

For such is Heav'n's command." The youthful prince

With scorn replied, and made this bold defense:

"You tell me, mother, what I knew before:

The Phrygian fleet is landed on the shore.

I neither fear nor will provoke the war;

My fate is Juno's most peculiar care.

But time has made you dote, and vainly tell

Of arms imagin'd in your lonely cell.

Go; be the temple and the gods your care;

Permit to men the thought of peace and war."
These haughty words Alecto's rage provoke,

And frighted Turnus trembled as she spoke.

Her eyes grow stiffen'd, and with sulphur burn;

Her hideous looks and hellish form return;

Her curling snakes with hissings fill the place,

And open all the furies of her face:

Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes,

She cast him backward as he strove to rise,

And, ling'ring, sought to frame some new replies.

High on her head she rears two twisted snakes,

Her chains she rattles, and her whip she shakes;

And, churning bloody foam, thus loudly speaks:

"Behold whom time has made to dote, and tell

Of arms imagin'd in her lonely cell!

Behold the Fates' infernal minister!

War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear."

Thus having said, her smold'ring torch, impress'd

With her full force, she plung'd into his breast.

Aghast he wak'd; and, starting from his bed,

Cold sweat, in clammy drops, his limbs o'erspread.

"Arms! arms!" he cries: "my sword and shield prepare!"

He breathes defiance, blood, and mortal war.

So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries,

The bubbling waters from the bottom rise:

Above the brims they force their fiery way;

Black vapors climb aloft, and cloud the day.

The peace polluted thus, a chosen band

He first commissions to the Latian land,

In threat'ning embassy; then rais'd the rest,

To meet in arms th' intruding Trojan guest,

To force the foes from the Lavinian shore,

And Italy's indanger'd peace restore.

Himself alone an equal match he boasts,

To fight the Phrygian and Ausonian hosts.

The gods invok'd, the Rutuli prepare

Their arms, and warn each other to the war.

His beauty these, and those his blooming age,

The rest his house and his own fame ingage.

While Turnus urges thus his enterprise,

The Stygian Fury to the Trojans flies;

New frauds invents, and takes a steepy stand,

Which overlooks the vale with wide command;

Where fair Ascanius and his youthful train,

With horns and hounds, a hunting match ordain,

And pitch their toils around the shady plain.

The Fury fires the pack; they snuff, they vent,

And feed their hungry nostrils with the scent.

'Twas of a well-grown stag, whose antlers rise

High o'er his front; his beams invade the skies.

From this light cause th' infernal maid prepares

The country churls to mischief, hate, and wars.
The stately beast the two Tyrrhidae bred,

Snatch'd from his dams, and the tame youngling fed.

Their father Tyrrheus did his fodder bring,

Tyrrheus, chief ranger to the Latian king:

Their sister Silvia cherish'd with her care

The little wanton, and did wreaths prepare

To hang his budding horns, with ribbons tied

His tender neck, and comb'd his silken hide,

And bathed his body. Patient of command

In time he grew, and, growing us'd to hand,

He waited at his master's board for food;

Then sought his salvage kindred in the wood,

Where grazing all the day, at night he came

To his known lodgings, and his country dame.

This household beast, that us'd the woodland grounds,

Was view'd at first by the young hero's hounds,

As down the stream he swam, to seek retreat

In the cool waters, and to quench his heat.

Ascanius young, and eager of his game,

Soon bent his bow, uncertain in his aim;

But the dire fiend the fatal arrow guides,

Which pierc'd his bowels thro' his panting sides.

The bleeding creature issues from the floods,

Possess'd with fear, and seeks his known abodes,

His old familiar hearth and household gods.

He falls; he fills the house with heavy groans,

Implores their pity, and his pain bemoans.

Young Silvia beats her breast, and cries aloud

For succor from the clownish neighborhood:

The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay

In the close woody covert, urg'd their way.

One with a brand yet burning from the flame,

Arm'd with a knotty club another came:

Whate'er they catch or find, without their care,

Their fury makes an instrument of war.

Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast,

Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist,

But held his hand from the descending stroke,

And left his wedge within the cloven oak,

To whet their courage and their rage provoke.

And now the goddess, exercis'd in ill,

Who watch'd an hour to work her impious will,

Ascends the roof, and to her crooked horn,

Such as was then by Latian shepherds borne,

Adds all her breath: the rocks and woods around,

And mountains, tremble at th' infernal sound.

The sacred lake of Trivia from afar,

The Veline fountains, and sulphureous Nar,

Shake at the baleful blast, the signal of the war.

Young mothers wildly stare, with fear possess'd,

And strain their helpless infants to their breast.
The clowns, a boist'rous, rude, ungovern'd crew,

With furious haste to the loud summons flew.

The pow'rs of Troy, then issuing on the plain,

With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:

Not theirs a raw and unexperienc'd train,

But a firm body of embattled men.

At first, while fortune favor'd neither side,

The fight with clubs and burning brands was tried;

But now, both parties reinforc'd, the fields

Are bright with flaming swords and brazen shields.

A shining harvest either host displays,

And shoots against the sun with equal rays.

Thus, when a black-brow'd gust begins to rise,

White foam at first on the curl'd ocean fries;

Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies;

Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,

The muddy bottom o'er the clouds is thrown.

First Almon falls, old Tyrrheus' eldest care,

Pierc'd with an arrow from the distant war:

Fix'd in his throat the flying weapon stood,

And stopp'd his breath, and drank his vital blood

Huge heaps of slain around the body rise:

Among the rest, the rich Galesus lies;

A good old man, while peace he preach'd in vain,

Amidst the madness of th' unruly train:

Five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures fill'd;

His lands a hundred yoke of oxen till'd.
Thus, while in equal scales their fortune stood

The Fury bath'd them in each other's blood;

Then, having fix'd the fight, exulting flies,

And bears fulfill'd her promise to the skies.

To Juno thus she speaks: "Behold! It is done,

The blood already drawn, the war begun;

The discord is complete; nor can they cease

The dire debate, nor you command the peace.

Now, since the Latian and the Trojan brood

Have tasted vengeance and the sweets of blood;

Speak, and my pow'r shall add this office more:

The neighb'ing nations of th' Ausonian shore

Shall hear the dreadful rumor, from afar,

Of arm'd invasion, and embrace the war."

Then Juno thus: "The grateful work is done,

The seeds of discord sow'd, the war begun;

Frauds, fears, and fury have possess'd the state,

And fix'd the causes of a lasting hate.

A bloody Hymen shall th' alliance join

Betwixt the Trojan and Ausonian line:

But thou with speed to night and hell repair;

For not the gods, nor angry Jove, will bear

Thy lawless wand'ring walks in upper air.

Leave what remains to me." Saturnia said:

The sullen fiend her sounding wings display'd,

Unwilling left the light, and sought the nether shade.

In midst of Italy, well known to fame,

There lies a lake (Amsanctus is the name)

Below the lofty mounts: on either side

Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide.

Full in the center of the sacred wood

An arm arises of the Stygian flood,

Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing sound,

Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around.

Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell,

And opens wide the grinning jaws of hell.

To this infernal lake the Fury flies;

Here hides her hated head, and frees the lab'ring skies.

Saturnian Juno now, with double care,

Attends the fatal process of the war.

The clowns, return'd, from battle bear the slain,

Implore the gods, and to their king complain.

The corps of Almon and the rest are shown;

Shrieks, clamors, murmurs, fill the frighted town.

Ambitious Turnus in the press appears,

And, aggravating crimes, augments their fears;

Proclaims his private injuries aloud,

A solemn promise made, and disavow'd;

A foreign son is sought, and a mix'd mungril brood.

Then they, whose mothers, frantic with their fear,

In woods and wilds the flags of Bacchus bear,

And lead his dances with dishevel'd hair,

Increase the clamor, and the war demand,

(Such was Amata's interest in the land,)

Against the public sanctions of the peace,

Against all omens of their ill success.

With fates averse, the rout in arms resort,

To force their monarch, and insult the court.

But, like a rock unmov'd, a rock that braves

The raging tempest and the rising waves-

Propp'd on himself he stands; his solid sides

Wash off the seaweeds, and the sounding tides-

So stood the pious prince, unmov'd, and long

Sustain'd the madness of the noisy throng.

But, when he found that Juno's pow'r prevail'd,

And all the methods of cool counsel fail'd,

He calls the gods to witness their offense,

Disclaims the war, asserts his innocence.

"Hurried by fate," he cries, "and borne before

A furious wind, we have the faithful shore.

O more than madmen! you yourselves shall bear

The guilt of blood and sacrilegious war:

Thou, Turnus, shalt atone it by thy fate,

And pray to Heav'n for peace, but pray too late.

For me, my stormy voyage at an end,

I to the port of death securely tend.

The fun'ral pomp which to your kings you pay,

Is all I want, and all you take away."

He said no more, but, in his walls confin'd,

Shut out the woes which he too well divin'd

Nor with the rising storm would vainly strive,

But left the helm, and let the vessel drive.

A solemn custom was observ'd of old,

Which Latium held, and now the Romans hold,

Their standard when in fighting fields they rear

Against the fierce Hyrcanians, or declare

The Scythian, Indian, or Arabian war;

Or from the boasting Parthians would regain

Their eagles, lost in Carrhae's bloody plain.

Two gates of steel (the name of Mars they bear,

And still are worship'd with religious fear)

Before his temple stand: the dire abode,

And the fear'd issues of the furious god,

Are fenc'd with brazen bolts; without the gates,

The wary guardian Janus doubly waits.

Then, when the sacred senate votes the wars,

The Roman consul their decree declares,

And in his robes the sounding gates unbars.

The youth in military shouts arise,

And the loud trumpets break the yielding skies.

These rites, of old by sov'reign princes us'd,

Were the king's office; but the king refus'd,

Deaf to their cries, nor would the gates unbar

Of sacred peace, or loose th' imprison'd war;

But hid his head, and, safe from loud alarms,

Abhorr'd the wicked ministry of arms.

Then heav'n's imperious queen shot down from high:

At her approach the brazen hinges fly;

The gates are forc'd, and ev'ry falling bar;

And, like a tempest, issues out the war.

The peaceful cities of th' Ausonian shore,

Lull'd in their ease, and undisturb'd before,

Are all on fire; and some, with studious care,

Their restiff steeds in sandy plains prepare;

Some their soft limbs in painful marches try,

And war is all their wish, and arms the gen'ral cry.

Part scour the rusty shields with seam; and part

New grind the blunted ax, and point the dart:

With joy they view the waving ensigns fly,

And hear the trumpet's clangor pierce the sky.

Five cities forge their arms: th' Atinian pow'rs,

Antemnae, Tibur with her lofty tow'rs,

Ardea the proud, the Crustumerian town:

All these of old were places of renown.

Some hammer helmets for the fighting field;

Some twine young sallows to support the shield;

The croslet some, and some the cuishes mold,

With silver plated, and with ductile gold.

The rustic honors of the scythe and share

Give place to swords and plumes, the pride of war.

Old fauchions are new temper'd in the fires;

The sounding trumpet ev'ry soul inspires.

The word is giv'n; with eager speed they lace

The shining headpiece, and the shield embrace.

The neighing steeds are to the chariot tied;

The trusty weapon sits on ev'ry side.

And now the mighty labor is begun

Ye Muses, open all your Helicon.

Sing you the chiefs that sway'd th' Ausonian land,

Their arms, and armies under their command;

What warriors in our ancient clime were bred;

What soldiers follow'd, and what heroes led.

For well you know, and can record alone,

What fame to future times conveys but darkly down.

Mezentius first appear'd upon the plain:

Scorn sate upon his brows, and sour disdain,

Defying earth and heav'n. Etruria lost,

He brings to Turnus' aid his baffled host.

The charming Lausus, full of youthful fire,

Rode in the rank, and next his sullen sire;

To Turnus only second in the grace

Of manly mien, and features of the face.

A skilful horseman, and a huntsman bred,

With fates averse a thousand men he led:

His sire unworthy of so brave a son;

Himself well worthy of a happier throne.

Next Aventinus drives his chariot round

The Latian plains, with palms and laurels crown'd.

Proud of his steeds, he smokes along the field;

His father's hydra fills his ample shield:

A hundred serpents hiss about the brims;

The son of Hercules he justly seems

By his broad shoulders and gigantic limbs;

Of heav'nly part, and part of earthly blood,

A mortal woman mixing with a god.

For strong Alcides, after he had slain

The triple Geryon, drove from conquer'd Spain

His captive herds; and, thence in triumph led,

On Tuscan Tiber's flow'ry banks they fed.

Then on Mount Aventine the son of Jove

The priestess Rhea found, and forc'd to love.

For arms, his men long piles and jav'lins bore;

And poles with pointed steel their foes in battle gore.

Like Hercules himself his son appears,

In salvage pomp; a lion's hide he wears;

About his shoulders hangs the shaggy skin;

The teeth and gaping jaws severely grin.

Thus, like the god his father, homely dress'd,

He strides into the hall, a horrid guest.
Then two twin brothers from fair Tibur came,

(Which from their brother Tiburs took the name,)

Fierce Coras and Catillus, void of fear:

Arm'd Argive horse they led, and in the front appear.

Like cloud-born Centaurs, from the mountain's height

With rapid course descending to the fight;

They rush along; the rattling woods give way;

The branches bend before their sweepy sway.

Nor was Praeneste's founder wanting there,

Whom fame reports the son of Mulciber:

Found in the fire, and foster'd in the plains,

A shepherd and a king at once he reigns,

And leads to Turnus' aid his country swains.

His own Praeneste sends a chosen band,

With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land;

Besides the succor which cold Anien yields,

The rocks of Hernicus, and dewy fields,

Anagnia fat, and Father Amasene-

A num'rous rout, but all of naked men:

Nor arms they wear, nor swords and bucklers wield,

Nor drive the chariot thro' the dusty field,

But whirl from leathern slings huge balls of lead,

And spoils of yellow wolves adorn their head;

The left foot naked, when they march to fight,

But in a bull's raw hide they sheathe the right.

Messapus next, (great Neptune was his sire,)

Secure of steel, and fated from the fire,

In pomp appears, and with his ardor warms

A heartless train, unexercis'd in arms:

The just Faliscans he to battle brings,

And those who live where Lake Ciminia springs;

And where Feronia's grove and temple stands,

Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands.

All these in order march, and marching sing

The warlike actions of their sea-born king;

Like a long team of snowy swans on high,

Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky,

When, homeward from their wat'ry pastures borne,

They sing, and Asia's lakes their notes return.

Not one who heard their music from afar,

Would think these troops an army train'd to war,

But flocks of fowl, that, when the tempests roar,

With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.
Then Clausus came, who led a num'rous band

Of troops embodied from the Sabine land,

And, in himself alone, an army brought.

'T was he, the noble Claudian race begot,

The Claudian race, ordain'd, in times to come,

To share the greatness of imperial Rome.

He led the Cures forth, of old renown,

Mutuscans from their olive-bearing town,

And all th' Eretian pow'rs; besides a band

That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land,

And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,

And mountaineers, that from Severus came,

And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,

And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,

And where Himella's wanton waters play.

Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie

By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:

The warlike aids of Horta next appear,

And the cold Nursians come to close the rear,

Mix'd with the natives born of Latine blood,

Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.

Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,

When pale Orion sets in wintry rain;

Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,

Or Lycian fields, when Phoebus burns the skies,

Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around;

Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.
High in his chariot then Halesus came,

A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name:

From Agamemnon born- to Turnus' aid

A thousand men the youthful hero led,

Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown'd,

And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground,

And those who live by Sidicinian shores,

And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,

Cales' and Osca's old inhabitants,

And rough Saticulans, inur'd to wants:

Light demi-lances from afar they throw,

Fasten'd with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.

Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear;

And on their warding arm light bucklers bear.

Nor Oebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,

From nymph Semethis and old Telon sprung,

Who then in Teleboan Capri reign'd;

But that short isle th' ambitious youth disdain'd,

And o'er Campania stretch'd his ample sway,

Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea;

O'er Batulum, and where Abella sees,

From her high tow'rs, the harvest of her trees.

And these (as was the Teuton use of old)

Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold;

Sling weighty stones, when from afar they fight;

Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light.

Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went,

And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent.

The rude Equicolae his rule obey'd;

Hunting their sport, and plund'ring was their trade.

In arms they plow'd, to battle still prepar'd:

Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.

Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,

By King Archippus sent to Turnus' aid,

And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head.

His wand and holy words, the viper's rage,

And venom'd wounds of serpents could assuage.

He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep

Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.

But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,

To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart:

Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods

In sighs remurmur'd to the Fucine floods.
The son of fam'd Hippolytus was there,

Fam'd as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;

Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,

And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore,

Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame,

In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.

Hippolytus, as old records have said,

Was by his stepdam sought to share her bed;

But, when no female arts his mind could move,

She turn'd to furious hate her impious love.

Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,

Another's crimes th' unhappy hunter bore,

Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore.

But chaste Diana, who his death deplor'd,

With Aesculapian herbs his life restor'd.

Then Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,

The dead inspir'd with vital breath again,

Struck to the center, with his flaming dart,

Th' unhappy founder of the godlike art.

But Trivia kept in secret shades alone

Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;

And call'd him Virbius in th' Egerian grove,

Where then he liv'd obscure, but safe from Jove.

For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood

Are coursers driv'n, who shed their master's blood,